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Quoted: Just a Rec diver. Was at the hang line and a 6ish foot Barracuda was about 5 inches from my face and refused to leave. Took me a few minutes to figure out, it saw it's reflection in my mask.... https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/269478/1000003597_jpg-3527993.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/269478/1000003596_jpg-3527994.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/269478/1000003595_jpg-3527995.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/269478/1000003594_jpg-3527996.JPG All pics out of Morehead City NC They love to hang out at the wrecks around Moorehead. I’ve seen them hovering near at the safety stop. |
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Quoted: There is shit down there that will make you a ghost.  The ones I have spoke to say groupers are assholes. When I was going offshore, out of Freeport Texas, to the High Island area, I used to go to the lower deck walkway and watch the groupers swim behind other large fish and chop them in half. |
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The only thing that startled me was once: We were removing a stone crab from a old abandoned lobster trap to get a couple lobsters in there. To save them of course. We break off a piece of rotted wood in the bottom corner and shoo the crab out. As soon as it gets about a foot from the trap, a 4' Cuda comes out of nowhere like a bolt of lightning and chops the crab. And I now remember another time snorkeling by alligator lighthouse. I saw thw largest cuda ever. Must have been 6' or more. 8"-10" diameter ish. Just staring at us and doing the mouth chop thing. |
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Diving off of Nassau (March 1992) I was with three friends who were more experienced divers than me. In thirty feet of water, very clear, we saw many angel fish and a few barracudas here and there. I was surprised (and thankful) how disinterested the barracuda were. They were probably used to seeing lots of divers as the dive boat captain had said our location was where the James Bond movie Thunderball was filmed (circa 1967). On a sad note, the most disturbing thing I ever saw in water was when I was above ground, at a large pond behind the Cleveland Museum of Art. A girl I was dating at the time (June 1983) and I were walking around it after visiting the museum. She sat down at a park bench and I walked over to the pond. Looking into the brownish-clear water. I first noticed a length of plaid green-blue cloth and then realized it was an ankle length adult female dress. Then I noticed long hair, a woman face down. It was odd how my brain just would not process at first what I was looking at in the pond. I stepped back, called my friend over and asked her what she saw. "A body." We went over to a caretaker on the other side of the pond who said he had just walked around the perimeter of the pond and had seen nothing. I pointed and told him to look and he did. Up came the antennae on his walkie-talkie and in minutes a firetruck and a cop car sped to the scene and pulled the lady out. A cop took our names and ages. As this location was off of Euclid Circle (a dangerous area back to the 1960s) I asked him if she might have been shot. He said "No, but we did get a call a few hours ago about a mentally ill woman who was on meds and who had walked out of a half-way house near here." I was glad the poor lady wasn't face up when I saw her in the water. 
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Quoted: I’ll share a short story. I got my AOW at BlueStone quarry in NC way back when. Anyway, the quarry is filled with very curious and aggressive Crappies that we’re looking for hand outs from divers, the little bastards would ‘nip’ you on fingers, toes, ear lobes, etc. After the first dive I bought a body glove beenie to wear to keep the little fuckers from trying to nibble on my ears. Sounds like my my open water checkout dive in a local quarry. About 6 or 8 of us were kneeling on a submerged platform at around 20' and the instructor was going around and having us remove/redon our masks and regulators, etc. Something kept hammering the tops of my ears, and when I looked around, everyone had carniverous bluegills hovering above their heads and tiny whisps of blood coming off their ears. We soon all held our hands over our ears to keep them from biting us. Later, everyone put on a neoprene hood for our afternoon dive. Those little buggers hurt! Diving through a ship's hull once, my gauges fell beneath a missing floorboard and the hose got stuck beneath the crack between the boards. That was definitely an 'Oh, shit' moment until I was able to diagnose why I was stuck crab crawled backwards about 10' to free myself. I no longer dive, but enjoy snorkeling. I snorkeled off a boat about a mile out last year with A LOT of big reef sharks in the Bahamas. After everyone was back on board, the mate began throwing a bunch of chum into the water and worked them up into a major feeding frenzy. No one went back in the water after that.  I also snorkeled late at night under a full moon in a bioluminescent bay in Puerto Rico. That was very cool to see the water glow neon blue wherever you made a disturbance. I stepped on a sea urchin while getting out of the water after snorkeling once, too, and had to perform minor surgery on the sole of my foot in a hot bath with a razorblade and tweezers to dig the spines out. Fun times. |
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Quoted: I've reached out to him asking for any details. Will report back if he replies. 4 family members on a 31' not 35' sloop. He finally talked to me about it years ago after I mentioned their collection of vintage Zane Grey books on fishing and among them were several old books about sea monsters and sailing. He's a serious waterman and still had difficulty talking about it. Attached File |
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Quoted: Yeah, I had wandered off a bit. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: At about 110 feet I saw a gauge that told me I had 2/3 of a tank. However, every time I tried to inhale, nothing happened. That sucked. What did you end up doing? Alternate reg? Share with a buddy? Was this your gear or a rental? Emergency ascent. (“Ooooooo….”) Straight up. Luckily under the boat. Tackled the tank hanging off the boat at 35 feet. Hung out for 20 minutes or so. Rental. What about your buddy? If you were diving solo, you should have had an alternative air source. Yeah, I had wandered off a bit. No alternate regulator? Is that still a thing? When I was diving, we had to have two. |
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Quoted: No alternate regulator? Is that still a thing? When I was diving, we had to have two. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: At about 110 feet I saw a gauge that told me I had 2/3 of a tank. However, every time I tried to inhale, nothing happened. That sucked. What did you end up doing? Alternate reg? Share with a buddy? Was this your gear or a rental? Emergency ascent. (“Ooooooo….”) Straight up. Luckily under the boat. Tackled the tank hanging off the boat at 35 feet. Hung out for 20 minutes or so. Rental. What about your buddy? If you were diving solo, you should have had an alternative air source. Yeah, I had wandered off a bit. No alternate regulator? Is that still a thing? When I was diving, we had to have two. The tank was empty. The gauge on the regulator was not correct. |
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Quoted: I've reached out to him asking for any details. Will report back if he replies. 4 family members on a 31' not 35' sloop. He finally talked to me about it years ago after I mentioned their collection of vintage Zane Grey books on fishing and among them were several old books about sea monsters and sailing. He's a serious waterman and still had difficulty talking about it. When he told you about it 10 years later he didn't mention at all what he saw ? Don't care about the details just what he thinks he saw when he told you about it . |
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Quoted: When he told you about it 10 years later he didn't mention at all what he saw ? Quoted: Quoted: I've reached out to him asking for any details. Will report back if he replies. 4 family members on a 31' not 35' sloop. He finally talked to me about it years ago after I mentioned their collection of vintage Zane Grey books on fishing and among them were several old books about sea monsters and sailing. He's a serious waterman and still had difficulty talking about it. When he told you about it 10 years later he didn't mention at all what he saw ? I'd be pissed if my friend left me hanging like that I'd bust his balls figuratively and literally, but often literally |
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Not deep sea but I found these and more at 106’…didn’t see the shark they belonged to anywhere though. Attached File Attached File Attached File Attached File Attached File …and before anyone asks, they are not for sale. I give away the “smaller” ones to kids all the time that come into my place and are brave enough to interact with me. |
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Quoted: Diving off the pinnacles at Pyramid lake, something happened I can't explain. Now days, the pinnacles are closed to the public, and Pyramid is considered to be haunted by the Piute's. My dive partner and I were at the swim area back 25 years ago, and it was clear water and we could see plants on the bottom. We both went down there and things got strange. Because I stood straight up to dump the air out of my bc (buoyancy compensator), I couldn't watch the bottom. In a matter of a minutes I realized that the water had gone dark. Checking my depth gauge I saw that I had passed 80 feet and was moving rapidly downward. I immediately inflated my bc and started up. It was then I felt something grabbing my fins! I paddled as hard as I could and after a few seconds whatever it was trying to pull me down let go and I made it to the surface. We were 200 yards around the other side of the pinnacles!! All in the space of a couple of minutes! That freaked both of us out, and we have never dove at Pyramid Lake ever again. The Piute's I worked with told me all sorts of stories about that lake, and I absolutely believe them now. Water babies, guys fishing just off the shore disappearing suddenly never to be found and on and on. Take a tip. Do not dive in Pyramid Lake Nevada! Transplanted croc or gator? |
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Quoted: The only thing that startled me was once: We were removing a stone crab from a old abandoned lobster trap to get a couple lobsters in there. To save them of course. We break off a piece of rotted wood in the bottom corner and shoo the crab out. As soon as it gets about a foot from the trap, a 4' Cuda comes out of nowhere like a bolt of lightning and chops the crab. And I now remember another time snorkeling by alligator lighthouse. I saw thw largest cuda ever. Must have been 6' or more. 8"-10" diameter ish. Just staring at us and doing the mouth chop thing. While snorkeling in the FL Keys I saw what I thought was a big jellyfish about 30' away, it got closer and I saw the mouth moving like that. That's when I realized it was a barracuda looking at me head on. It turned to swim away and appeared to grow a foot per second as it turned, I think it was a good 6' at least. That was probably the longest I've ever held my breath, it never even occurred to me that I needed to breathe until it swam away. |
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Quoted: The only thing that startled me was once: We were removing a stone crab from a old abandoned lobster trap to get a couple lobsters in there. To save them of course. We break off a piece of rotted wood in the bottom corner and shoo the crab out. As soon as it gets about a foot from the trap, a 4' Cuda comes out of nowhere like a bolt of lightning and chops the crab. And I now remember another time snorkeling by alligator lighthouse. I saw thw largest cuda ever. Must have been 6' or more. 8"-10" diameter ish. Just staring at us and doing the mouth chop thing. those stone crabs are STRONG AS F for their size. iykyk. |
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Quoted: Around 2007 there was a documentary about Chernobyl and the host went to Pripyat and NPP 4. In the plant's cooling ponds there were 9ft catfish. Normally they don't get over 70 pounds because of predators but the 1986 incident killed off the large predatory birds and gave the bigger fish an opportunity to continue growing. A lot of pseudo science imply that radiation super sizes things - which is not fact based - Oddly if you go to Ocean nuclear test sites, savanna river and chernobyl wildlife simply does much better without people being around to mess with them. Ironically the lower levels of radiation only serve to keep people away and protect them. |
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Diving in HI, my first night dive, wreck dive, deep dive, and from a boat dive. We were going as a small group to putz around the aft end of a boat sitting at about 80, then come back up, straight down the line and back up. My dive buddy had a red light in his tank so I focused on that. Also diving was a group of nitrox divers heading forward and to the floor, about 120. My dive buddy starts swimming, I follow. He is getting after it, fast as shit along the wreck. Im thinking what the fuck. He hooks right and we are inside the bridge of the wreck, and there's a sea turtle the size of a manhole cover. I get past that and speed up to catch my buddy as he drops over the side of the bow and heads down...then the oh fuuuuuck moment hits me. I traced the edge of the wreck back up to where my group were literally just standing there in a circle. Found one of the dive masters and tapped my mostly empty regulator and said I am going up. He handed me a buddy regulator but I was good for the short trip up. Next dive I got to see my dive buddy, hungover and seasick on the ride out, puking through his regulator at 50 feet. |
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Quoted: This picture emphasizes why "diving with a buddy" and having a good dive knife are a good idea.  Quoted: Quoted: Big Tiger shark between me and the surface. This picture emphasizes why "diving with a buddy" and having a good dive knife are a good idea. Ideally diving with a buddy who is a SLOWER swimmer than you are!
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Raped by a Mer-Man? |
Speaking of groupers... This was a job we were doing in the Med for Israel. Depth was around 800'. 2003-4 timeframe. Sorry for the low rez, but old tech at the time.  Grouper attack |
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Quoted: I knew a saturation diver that worked the North Sea rigs. He would only say that "Seals are bastards". They love to bite onto a fin and pull it off your foot. Scary as fuck when you cant even see the end of your leg, just knowing something has a hold of it and pulling. I don't miss diving in zero visibility. |
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Quoted: I'll take "the rest of the crew ate that guy" for a thousand. Seems unlikely that something with tentacles big enough to pull a man off a boat, and whose hunting routine would include attacking stuff floating on the surface, would be unknown to us. Giant squid is the only thing I can think they live at >1000ft. ...most of the time. Well hi there big fella!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZxGGQc_hRIQuoted: Quoted: I just saw a video, of course I can't find it now, where a WW1 German u boat was sunk and the few survivors got into a lifeboat and some hung on the side. They were in the Atlantic off of Africa. At night a large tentacle started slapping around the boat and survivors when finally it wrapped around a guy and took him under Apparently it was corroborated by the survivors. It's the first I'd ever heard about it but fuck all that insanity I'll take "the rest of the crew ate that guy" for a thousand. Seems unlikely that something with tentacles big enough to pull a man off a boat, and whose hunting routine would include attacking stuff floating on the surface, would be unknown to us. Giant squid is the only thing I can think they live at >1000ft. ...most of the time. Well hi there big fella! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZxGGQc_hRITo be fair, one of the earliest confirmed specimens came from a reported attack on a dingy. And WWII undoubtedly had more instances of men adrift in deep ocean than any other time in history. It's just remotely possible that sick or crazy architheuthis might come up to the surface and still have enough strength to be aggressive at something that seems potentially dangerous to them. And the squid need not eat a person to cause an injured adrift sailor to simply drown from exhaustion. |
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Quoted: My dad and I were volunteer underwater archeologists doing most of our work in the Dismal Swamp. One time we were diving on the a boat we found, the CSS Appomattox. I had just suited up and gone in when my dad started pushing me around underwater. His fin even knocked my mask sideways and knocked the regulator out of my mouth. It was ZERO visibility black water and I couldn’t see him so I just surfaced to move away from him and work a different part of the wreck. However, my dad was still in our dive boat putting on his gear. Nobody else was in the water. I had no idea what had pushed me around but I figured it was a catfish as we are pretty far north and pretty far inland where we were diving. Turns out the local newspaper printed pics a week later that some kayakers took of an 8’ alligator on the bank and you could see the float we had on the Appomattox in the foreground. I had been pushed around by an alligator and didn’t even know it. Holy SHIT!!! 
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Quoted: Ideally diving with a buddy who is a SLOWER swimmer than you are! When I was in BUDS (no, I did not make it), the Instructors always harped on having a sharp knife. We asked why, they said sharks.... One of the students said the knife was worthless against a shark. The instructor smiled and said the knife isn't for the shark, you just need to swim faster than everyone else, and if they happen to be bleeding...... |
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Quoted:Herbert Nitsch (born 20 April 1970) is an Austrian freediver, the current freediving world record champion, and "the deepest man on earth" having dived to a depth of 253.2 meters (831 feet). The OP requested info about strange things while deep sea diving . 
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Quoted:Diving in HI, my first night dive, wreck dive, deep dive, and from a boat dive. We were going as a small group to putz around the aft end of a boat sitting at about 80, then come back up, straight down the line and back up. My dive buddy had a red light in his tank so I focused on that. Also diving was a group of nitrox divers heading forward and to the floor, about 120. My dive buddy starts swimming, I follow. He is getting after it, fast as shit along the wreck. Im thinking what the fuck. He hooks right and we are inside the bridge of the wreck, and there's a sea turtle the size of a manhole cover. I get past that and speed up to catch my buddy as he drops over the side of the bow and heads down...then the oh fuuuuuck moment hits me. I traced the edge of the wreck back up to where my group were literally just standing there in a circle. Found one of the dive masters and tapped my mostly empty regulator and said I am going up. He handed me a buddy regulator but I was good for the short trip up. Next dive I got to see my dive buddy, hungover and seasick on the ride out, puking through his regulator at 50 feet. Empty regulator ?? What is that ? |
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Quoted: Not deep sea but I found these and more at 106’…didn’t see the shark they belonged to anywhere though. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/191077/IMG_5228_jpeg-3528052.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/191077/IMG_5225_jpeg-3528054.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/191077/IMG_5227_jpeg-3528055.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/191077/IMG_5226_jpeg-3528056.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/191077/IMG_5224_jpeg-3528058.JPG …and before anyone asks, they are not for sale. I give away the “smaller” ones to kids all the time that come into my place and are brave enough to interact with me. Did you grab these at Meg Ledge? |
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I've been to what I feel are some stupid deep depths but nothing of substance to talk about there. Some "natural" shipwrecks off in the Gulf have yielded some cool stuff. I wouldn't classify it as weird though. Pulled these morphine ampoules off of a shipwreck sank in the Gulf by U-84. Attached File |
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Quoted: Do we have to wait ten years? I'll keep us floating till then.....this was about 70 miles off the coast of NorCal Attached File Just a gray saying hi as he headed north. |
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Quoted: I've been to what I feel are some stupid deep depths but nothing of substance to talk about there. Some "natural" shipwrecks off in the Gulf have yielded some cool stuff. I wouldn't classify it as weird though. Pulled these morphine ampoules off of a shipwreck sank in the Gulf by U-84. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/192579/baja1_jpg-3528291.JPG |
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Quoted: Speaking of groupers... This was a job we were doing in the Med for Israel. Depth was around 800'. 2003-4 timeframe. Sorry for the low rez, but old tech at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74KnP52-3Z4I cant take the helium enhanced outrage. You sound like Alvin the Chipmunk on meth 
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Quoted: Sometimes you don’t want to go into details for fear of what people may think of you. Quoted: Quoted: I'd be pissed if my friend left me hanging like that I'd bust his balls figuratively and literally, but often literally Sometimes you don’t want to go into details for fear of what people may think of you. Trust me, he doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks. Got fed up with the music business, sold his house, bus, music equipment, and gave away all his gold and platinum records. Kept some clothes, surfboards, fishing gear, and a few tools. Bought a place on a point break on an island off the Caribbean coast Panama. Dives, fishes, and surfs and gives not one fuck what anyone thinks of his Pacific adventure. |
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Quoted: Trust me, he doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks. Got fed up with the music business, sold his house, bus, music equipment, and gave away all his gold and platinum records. Kept some clothes, surfboards, fishing gear, and a few tools. Bought a place on a point break on an island off the Caribbean coast Panama. Dives, fishes, and surfs and gives not one fuck what anyone thinks of his Pacific adventure. Jeffery Epstein? |
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Quoted: Mola ?? Is that Idahoan for elk ?? Quoted: Quoted:Much to my relief, it was a great big Mola. Just about the most unscary thing in the ocean, in fact they're downright comical. We saw them from time to time on the surface, but never when diving. It's ignorant to tear up names with slang BS, it's just as ignorant as saying "cuda" God damn that's fucking stupid and doesn't make you sound cool by slashing a name of a fish . |
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Quoted: Falling off a shrimp boat while they are shoveling what they cannot keep over the deck would probably end badly also. A friend's dad when like that, he was wearing what I would best describe as one-piece waders for flyfishing. Filled up with water and straight down, no time to even scream. |
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Quoted: I cant take the helium enhanced outrage. You sound like Alvin the Chipmunk on meth Helium speak is hard to understand on a good day. Throw in an upset Irishman, and it gets worse. Whenever i have to sit the panel for a few minutes to relieve a Life Support Tech, I always tell them to tell the divers not to speak to me unless it's a dire emergence, cuz I'm not gonna understand them, even with the descrambler on. |
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Quoted: Diving in HI, my first night dive, wreck dive, deep dive, and from a boat dive. We were going as a small group to putz around the aft end of a boat sitting at about 80, then come back up, straight down the line and back up. My dive buddy had a red light in his tank so I focused on that. Also diving was a group of nitrox divers heading forward and to the floor, about 120. My dive buddy starts swimming, I follow. He is getting after it, fast as shit along the wreck. Im thinking what the fuck. He hooks right and we are inside the bridge of the wreck, and there's a sea turtle the size of a manhole cover. I get past that and speed up to catch my buddy as he drops over the side of the bow and heads down...then the oh fuuuuuck moment hits me. I traced the edge of the wreck back up to where my group were literally just standing there in a circle. Found one of the dive masters and tapped my mostly empty regulator and said I am going up. He handed me a buddy regulator but I was good for the short trip up. Next dive I got to see my dive buddy, hungover and seasick on the ride out, puking through his regulator at 50 feet. The "Mahi" on the Waianae side? If so there used to be a huge moray that hung out on the bridge that a lot of dive charters would feed and he became used to human interaction. |
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Quoted: Not deep sea but I found these and more at 106’…didn’t see the shark they belonged to anywhere though. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/191077/IMG_5228_jpeg-3528052.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/191077/IMG_5225_jpeg-3528054.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/191077/IMG_5227_jpeg-3528055.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/191077/IMG_5226_jpeg-3528056.JPG https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/191077/IMG_5224_jpeg-3528058.JPG …and before anyone asks, they are not for sale. I give away the “smaller” ones to kids all the time that come into my place and are brave enough to interact with me. You won’t see the shark(s) from the larger ones. Those are megalodo teeth. Great finds! |
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Quoted: I know people who’ve been to the bottom of Wazee! When I was doing some tech training in the summer of 2021, the day before some Hispanic guy had drowned in about 20 feet of water as he got to a drop off and couldn’t swim. I know divers who brought the body up. The day I was there parents were letting their little kids play in the water right near the drop off. I went over and told them what had happened the day before. They moved to a shallower spot. I’ve seen people paddle boarding without a life vest where it’s 300ft deep. Do divers die at Wazee every year or others getting into too deep? I think it's not usually divers. I work about 30 min away and will occasionally hear an ambulance dispatched there, but most of my "knowledge" is second hand from the EMTs |